Devcon VI Watch List for Content and Social Applications
In the recent Devcon VI @ Bogotá, I learned about the progress of the Ethereum ecosystem from the angle of rebuilding the content ecosystem and social media. And here is a watch list I curated on the relevant topics. Most of them are talks, and some of them are relevant resources discussed.
I organized the topics according to two axes: the content creation - consumption flow, and the application - infrastructure spectrum. These are rough coordinates, but helpful in identifying bottlenecks and breakthroughs in a content ecosystem.
For applications that are driving mass adoption of Web3, the biggest two bottlenecks have been gas fee and wallet interaction. The former is not yet solved since layer2s with ZK technology are still in their infancy, but slide-chains such as Polygon can be a temporal solution. Wallet interaction, including private key management, can be simplified by account abstraction. From this Devcon, it seems account abstraction is almost production ready.
For truly decentralized applications, there are two more challenges. One is the light client, allowing applications to interact with blockchains without centralized providers. It seems light clients are still far from maturity and adoption. The other one is the economic model to facilitate social coordination and reward contribution, which is context-specific and needs to be experimented with by applications. There are general ideas discussed in this direction, such as pluralism and different forms of quadratic funding/voting, but no concrete examples are seen.
Smart Contract Wallet / Account Abstraction
- Account Abstraction on StarkNet
- Asset Rights Abstractions - a Case for Smart Contract Wallets
- Why Account Abstraction is a Game-Changer for Dapps
- Account Abstraction Panel
- The Future of Wallets: MPC vs Smart Wallets
Storage
Light client
Zero Knowledge
Layer 2
- Major Trends in the Layer 2 Ecosystem: Where We Are and Likely Upcoming Themes
- The State of Fiat On-Ramps for Layer 2s
- New Paradigms by Non EVM Compatible L2s
Cross-chain
- Crosschain Security Considerations for the Degen in All of Us
- A Better Mental Model for Rollups, Plasma, and Validating Bridges
Economics
Implementation & Security
- 5 Smart Contract Patterns I Wish More Devs Would Use
- Notable security incidents since Devcon V
- An Overview of AMM Mechanisms
Application in the social context
- New Applications for Quadratic Funding
- Reinforcement Learning for Query Pricing in The Graph
- How to Integrate Diverse Sources of Reputational Evidence: Learnings from the Lens Protocol Reputation System
- Pairwise coordination subsidies: a new quadratic funding design
Social Coordination
- Practical Pluralism 🌱
- Social Composability Design: How DAOs Can Leverage It for the Future of Work
- Social Slashing
- The Future of Social Coordination of DAO's
- The web3 Social Layer - Web3 Social: the Next Wave of Innovation